Addiction

It’s becoming increasingly rare not to be touched in some ways by addiction. As most of our problems, I don’t think the answer is in the external. Better public policy toward addiction would help for sure, but even to enact that we first most go into ourselves to see what would really help.

About 5 years ago many of us started “binge-watching” shows. This was a result of Netflix releasing whole seasons of programming at once. We were left with little option other than watching hours of television in a sitting. I mean we could practice that dreadfully humdrum idea of self-control, but then we would be out of the loop. And just like that, we as a culture started appropriating language associated with addiction to describe our leisure activities.

I find this revealing. Prior to this, I feel it was too easy to compartmentalize addition. We could talk about addictive substances. From sugar to heroin there is no shortage of substance that people can addict to in a chemical way. Which is to say once we ingest them our bodies will crave more. But then how do we explain addictions to gambling and sex. For that, we can tell ourselves the story that some people have addictive personalities or are addicts. Some have even gone on a quest to find the addiction gene. This never made much sense to me, as I could never find how having an addictive personality would provide anyone or their group with any evolutionary advantages. I could never understand how an addiction gene would not be promptly weeded out. As a layman in the study of addiction, the notion of an addictive persoanlity seems like a clever way of distancing ourselves from our own addictions.

So then how do we explain addiction, without talking about chemical persuasion or greedy genes? Now that we (or at least many of us) have “binge watch” something we can no longer pretend addition is someone else's problem. Even if someone can say they never “binge watch” anything who can say they never have fallen under the spell of “ok just one more” a couple of times in a row. I propose addiction is inseparable from a complex industrial society like ours. We are too compartmentalized, too isolated, too out of sync with nature too not fall under the sway of addiction. I agree with Gabor Mate who says addiction is a way we learned to deal with trauma. The trauma can be mundane or devastating, but it leaves us with pain that needs to be attending to. Whatever our addiction, from social media, to pill, to politics, they provide a respite from our pain.

So what does addiction have to do with massage? Well, it seems (and again I’m not an addiction expert) that all addiction takes us out of our bodies. I heard anecdotes of people soiling themselves because they couldn't stop playing slot machines. There a certain numbness that is easy to recognize among people who get possessed by drugs. They stop attending to their physical needs. As a bodyworker, I try to help people get back into their body’s. After a massage, our body's should feel more alive with sensation. Does this mean that getting a massage will silence the monkey mind that pulls us towards addiction? No. I wish it was that simple but finding ways to reconnect with the physical, getting back into our bodies does weakening the pull of addiction. I have found massage, and mindful full movement practices feed off the same energy that fuels my additions. They create within me a compulsion to do them. The difference is afterward I always feel better for it.

Anthony Bruni